Second Death experience
I saw the second death in another ICU, an Intensive Care Unit in a hospital in Chennai. This second person did not suffer when he passed away. I started analyzing, 'Why did the first person suffer and why did the second person not suffer?' After analyzing or meditating on that issue, something came up. It occurred to me as a formula. That whole formula itself is this whole program of NSP.
I saw the first death in Varanasi and that was so painful. There is no other word to explain it. It was so painful even to see, I was not able to digest the scene for the next 3-4 days. When I saw the second death I was enlightened. I saw the life slowly moving out from that person.
I went to the hospital to heal one of our devotees. At the ICU I was healing our devotee. Again the next bed person was dying. I was able to see what was happening.
This time I saw that the person neither had pain nor he had suffering. Beautifully he was moving from the first body to the second layer, second layer to third layer, third layer to fourth layer. Like how a ball rolls in the snow, just like that his being was moving. I was surprised. Suddenly his being slowly moved out and just disappeared. He became enlightened. He was liberated.
I started thinking, 'Why did the first person suffer so much while the second person did not have anything?' I enquired with his relatives, 'Was he a spiritual person?' First I thought that he must be a great spiritual person. He must have meditated a lot. But the relatives said, 'Meditation? What meditation? He would not even go to the temple. He was not even religious.' Then I started contemplating, 'Why did the first person suffer so much while the second person had such a beautiful and peaceful death?'
There is an educative website on near-death experiences. An American doctor did research on this subject. He started meeting people who had near death experiences. Near death means those who are clinically declared dead and who come back to life after a few hours. There are so many such cases. In our Indian villages there will always be 4-5 cases. If we go to our native village, always we will hear 3-4 cases like this.
The other day a doctor was telling me, 'There are so many cases who are medically declared dead, who come back to life after 4-5 hours.' In some person's life, it happens 3-4 times; they come back to life. This doctor somehow got interested in this subject and he started going all over the world meeting these types of persons, who are medically declared dead and who came back to life. He met 10,000 people. He went all over the world and for 30 years he did research.
He met 10,000 people and collected all their memories, all their experiences of how they had their death experience.
After analyzing all their experiences, he makes a conclusion. He makes a statement, a beautiful statement. People on the planet earth, only when they live they are Christians, they are Muslims, they are Hindus, they are Jews, they are Buddhists. But when they die, all of them die in the way that is described by Hinduism. We maybe a Hindu, Muslim, Jew or Christian, but when we die we are a Vedanti.
In the Katopanishad, there is a clear description of death. What he found in all these 10,000 people's experiences that he collected matches exactly with what Katopanishad describes.
Let us see exactly how death happens. First we move from the physical body. You may be thinking, 'I came to learn how to live but Master is teaching all about death!' But unless we understand the mysteries of death, we will not have a clear idea about life. Our concept about death totally changes our concept about life. Our philosophy about life changes when our philosophy about death changes.
See, in the East, nobody cares about time. Things will happen in their own way, things take their own sweet time. Why? That is because all eastern religions believe in many births. We have eternity in our hands! If not today, let it be tomorrow. If it is not coming today, tomorrow, otherwise, next janma, the next life!
All western religions say there is only one birth, one lifetime. They say, after death, we don't have any birth. That is why western people are so time conscious. Whatever has to be enjoyed has to be enjoyed in these 70-80 years. Nothing else can be done. We have to finish whatever it is. That is why their life style, everything is catered around this time consciousness.
The idea of death changes the whole idea of life. So, never think learning about death is a waste. That is the basic lesson everyone has to learn. First a person moves from the physical layer, this body that we are having, to the pranic layer, which involves inhaling and exhaling, the energy or the air movement, the prana movement inside our system.
When we move from first layer to second layer, all our desires, the desires, the unfulfilled desires, the way we wanted to live but did not live, all those things usually come up. It is almost like in a room 10 persons are standing and all the 10 people are kicking a football. What will happen? How the football is kicked from this corner to that corner, that corner to that corner and back from that corner to here. Same way, our consciousness is kicked from all the corners. It moves from all the corners because in each corner some desire is standing and kicking. All our desires are forcing us to enter into the body so that we can enjoy them.
Our desires will be forcing us one side to enter into the body so that we can live and enjoy. The other side, the body will say 'No! I am tired. I can't host you anymore; leave!' One side, the body will tell, 'I am tired; I can't host you.' The other side, the pranic layer, the desires, will force us to live inside the body. That is what is the pulling and pushing. Pulling and pushing is nothing but the fight between the desires and the body.
And somehow if we move from the pranic layer slowly, next we enter into the mental body. In the mental body, another one problem is that all the guilt rises. All the guilt is about the way in that we wanted to live, but we never lived.
See, desire is about the future, guilt is about the past. But both are one and the same. Same thing, when it is about the past it is guilt, when it is about the future it is desire. The way in which we want to live is desire, the way in which we wanted to live but didn't is guilt. I always tell, guilt is nothing but reviewing our past decisions with updated intelligence.
Our intelligence is continuously updated. With this updated intelligence, we review our past decisions. For example, at the age of 7, your mother comes and calls you to eat. She says, 'Enough! Stop playing. Come and eat.' What do you say, 'No, I don't want to eat; I want to play.' If your mother comes and tries to snatch the toys away, what do you do? You not only cry, but also curse your mother. Now you know that the toys are not as important as your mother. Your mother is more important. Now your intelligence is totally different. At that time, toys were so much more important to you than your mother. You started cursing your mother.
Now you know, mother is much more important. With this updated intelligence, we create guilt, 'Oh! At that time I cursed my mother'. What is the use? At that time we had only that much of intelligence. All our decisions are made with the available intelligence.
If we start reviewing our past decisions with updated intelligence, we will always create guilt. All the guilt is nothing but trying to review past decisions with updated intelligence. All the guilt rises in the mental body. Then if we move a little away, a little deeper, we reach the etheric layer that is related to all our sufferings. Like this, each and every layer has got its own samskara.
Actually, traveling through these layers only is called as hell. Really, there is no other place called separately as hell. Hell or heaven are not geographical, they are psychological. Please be very clear, hell and heaven are not geographical. They are psychological.
One more thing, when we enter into the dream layer, if we start dreaming, this whole world will become black and white. We forget this whole world and the dream becomes multi-color. If we come out of the dream, this whole world is seen in 4 dimensions, like 4D.
Now, when we are in this physical layer, this whole world is seen as 4D. We experience this world as 4D, in multi-color. When we are in the dream world, we experience that as 4D. When we are here, dream becomes black and white, and this becomes 4D. When we are there, dream becomes 4D and this world becomes black and white.
In the same manner when we move away from this physical layer to the pranic layer, this whole world will become black and white. What did we work for? What all did we think as the base for our life? You see, we invest in our personality. We build our personality based on a few pillars.
There are a few pillars, foundations, on which we build our personality such as money, name and fame, relationships and pride that I have a big community support. These are the few pillars on which we create our personality.
If someone asks you, 'Who you are?' What will you say? 'I am an engineer', 'I am a doctor', 'I am a lawyer'. Or you will say, 'I am the owner of 4 houses'. Or 'I am such and such a person's husband or wife', or I am her husband, or somebody's son, somebody's daughter, somebody's wife. All these things, all these ideas that are the foundations we build our personality upon.
When we move from the physical body, all these foundations will be completely shaken. We can't sign in our check any more. Our signature is not accepted. Our bank balance is no more related to us. We can't handle our bank balance. And our car will not be useful to us. At the most only the ambulance will be useful. Our house will not be useful to us. We can't even relate with our relatives, we can't talk to them. If we try, they will run away. Whatever had been the foundation for our being, that whole foundation would be shaken. When the foundation is shaken, naturally we don't have anything to hold on to.
Understand this one thing, if we suddenly hear some loss in our business, we will feel that our whole body is suffering. The suffering will not be in one portion, the whole body will be suffering. It is almost like our being is crushed. We can see in our life, if we just sit in our office and worry about something, we don't have to do any work, just sit and worry and we will have shoulder pain. If we just sit and worry for 10 minutes, what will happen? We will only have shoulder pain.
When something moves away from us, our whole body suffers. When we move from the physical body, the same suffering starts happening. Whatever we thought as a foundation for our life is shaken.
As of now, this whole world will appear in 4D. All this spirituality, meditation, growing the inner being, consciousness and all these issues will appear black and white. That is why, when I call people for meditation, they tell me, 'I don't have time to meditate.' Never say 'I don't have time to meditate.' Be very clear to yourself and say, 'I don't feel that it is that much important.' If we say, 'I don't think meditation is so important' then we are honest. But never say 'I don't have time.' Everybody has got the same 24 hours. It is not that the few who are meditating are jobless. It is just a question of priority, what we want in our life.
As of now, this world will appear in 4 dimensions, in multi-color. That is the reason all this spirituality or the consciousness, spiritual experience, all these will appear in two colors. But, when we move away from the physical body, whatever we thought as 4D everything will totally disappear, because their foundations would have been shaken. That time, we will not have any base. Or we will not have any space, where we can rest. That is the reason why death is always about suffering. At that moment of death or before, if we can have a conscious glimpse truth, or awareness of consciousness, we can consciously enter into death.
If we understand this completely, whatever we think as 4D will not seem as important. Our
personality will not be built on this 4D. While we are still living we need to create at least one foundation or pillar in the other dimension of spirituality. See, now we are in two dimensions, this material world and the other is that of spirituality.
As on now, if our being has got 10 pillars, all the 10 pillars are based on this world and this 4D. Not a single pillar is based on consciousness or the inner space. Our whole personality is built only based on the outer space - our name, our fame, what society speaks about us.
Our complete personality is structured based only on what society speaks about us. If everybody around us says that we are great, what do we think? We think, 'I am a great person.' If everybody says, 'You are useless', what do we start doing? We start getting depressed.
Not even a single pillar of our building is based on spirituality. Our entire identity is based on outer space. Everything important to us is based on our wealth, our name and fame, our social setup, our relationships, our family, our friends. That is the reason why we start suffering terribly when those pillars are shaken. If we have even only one pillar in the consciousness, we will not have suffering.
That is what the Gita says: what comes and stands in our mind at the time of leaving the body decides what we shall be in our next birth. If we have even only one pillar on the consciousness, naturally, we will not have the suffering when we leave the body. All the other nine pillars will become black and white. Even if the other nine pillars become black and white, this one pillar of consciousness will be there to guide us. That one pillar will be there in the multi color and 4D.
As of now, that pillar does not exist. As of now, our whole personality is based on outer space. All our pillars are in this 4D. There is no inner space. That is why people can kick us around like a ball. If any body just throws one word at us, that's all, we are depressed. If somebody says we are mad, we shout at them and prove that we are mad! A single word is enough to make us mad. Nothing much is necessary. We see the street dogs, if we throw one stone at the dog, it is enough to disturb that dog.
We are in no way better than street dogs. Any body throwing one word on us is enough. We are already out because our whole personality is built on the outer space. In the inner space we don't have strength. One more thing, as of now the inner space looks black and white. That is why we never give importance. But when we move from the body, the inner space will become 4D, the outer space will become black and white. Even if there is a single pillar in our inner space, we will not have any suffering at the time of leaving the body. We will leave the body beautifully.
Now let us see how the second death happened so peacefully. Now the statement that I am making is a little difficult to understand but again I have no other way, because truth has to be explained. Truth has to be expressed. Only then you will be able to enter into the formula. This is the way the formula has happened to the person. When the second death was happening, the moment the person left the first layer body, because an enlightened being was standing there,
because of his presence, somehow he was able to catch a glimpse of that consciousness. He was able to catch my presence.
At this time, I had become enlightened. But at the time of the first death I was witness to I was not enlightened. I was still doing my tapas. I was wandering all over India. At that time of the second death I had already been enlightened. Somehow because of that he was able to catch a glimpse of consciousness. The moment he left the first layer body, he was able to feel me or experience me. The moment he started experiencing me his whole consciousness was simply centered on me.
See, what are the things that usually stop you from surrendering to the Master? These are issues like your bank balance, your house, your car, your relationship, your wife and your own insecurity about your life. You are concerned that if you surrender what would happen. You may start becoming a servant for him. There are so many other such concerns.
All these things are stopping you from surrendering or entering into the consciousness. Surrendering and entering into the consciousness, all these are one and the same. But for that person who was dying all these things have already become valueless. When he has left the first level body, naturally all these things have become already valueless. So, whatever is catching or pulling, whatever strings are pulling him down are already cut, disconnected.
As long as you think the outer world is worthy and that it has got value, you will have the fear that somebody may take it away or somebody may snatch it from you. As long as you think that whatever you collected in your life is valuable you will have tremendous fear. That is why I tell people that as long as you think these things are valuable you will never be able to experience fearlessness. There will be continuous fear. The more you have the more the fear in you and the more your being will be shaken. Every moment you will be waiting afraid of what may happen. But at that moment, whatever can be taken away from that person has been taken away. Now there is nothing to lose. Trusting the Master is very easy at that moment.
Somehow, fortunately he had my presence there. Simply he could understand that all the other things are valueless. When the physical body and material things were taken away from him, his whole consciousness without any doubt, without any difficulty, was centered on me. Naturally, when he was centered on the enlightened being or conscious being, he simply dissolved into that enlightenment without any suffering.
What ever is stopping you now will not stop you at that time. At that time you don't have to practice renunciation, everything will be taken away from you by force. See, only as long you have choices you have to practice this renunciation of wealth, fame and all these things. At the time of death you don't have to practice renunciation because everything will be taken away from you. What is there to practice? You see, you don't have anything to even renounce.
So, there is nothing that can stop you from entering into the enlightenment experience. There is nothing that can stop you from entering into the conscious experience. But only one thing you need, when you leave the body, you need a conscious being around you. Without that, it is not possible. Now what to do? I can't go and stand in all the ICUs and ask people 'Hey, when will you die? When will you die?'
From my experience I can tell you that leaving the body peacefully is the greatest gift anybody can have. If you have got that gift, you achieved whatever has to be achieved. You have lived your life; nothing else needs to be achieved. If you have not achieved that, nothing is worth achieving.
After seeing this second death, I started seriously contemplating about how this can be reproduced? Or, how can I help people to leave consciously? As I was telling you, I cannot go and stand in all the ICUs. That's impossible.
And one more thing, energy is not bound by space or time. Energy is beyond time and space. All we need is a set-top-box, that's all. See, if you have a set-top-box in your house, you can just tune your TV to some channel. If you tune to BBC, you will see BBC. If you tune to CNN, you will see CNN. Whatever channel you tune you can see that program.
Same way, at the time of leaving the body if you can tune yourself to consciousness, if you can tune yourself to thoughtless awareness, conscious experience, simply you will see your life is a conscious experience. You will be able to cross this ocean of samsara, birth and death or this ocean of samskara, ocean of all these 7 layers, beautifully and peacefully.
We are going to work with that formula in this program. Please understand, if you work with the theory of gravity, you can understand completely what Newton experienced. Same way, work with this formula, you can simply experience what that dying man experienced. What has happened in my consciousness and his can happen in your consciousness also. All you need to do is, work with this formula intensely. Just go with this formula as intensely as possible. Nothing else needs to be done.
INCIDENTS FROM HERE & THERE
Ananda Tapas
Nithyananda teaches many meditation techniques for personal transformation. For some techniques the Master's presence is needed. The presence of the enlightened being, the Buddha, is needed. For some techniques the knowledge and understanding of the enlightened master's teachings, the dhamma is needed. The introduction and the know-how are also needed. For some techniques the community of the enlightened master, the sangha is also needed. There are a few techniques that require all three, Buddha, dhamma and sangha. This is called Pancha Tapas. Nithyananda calls it Ananda Tapas.
The meditator sits within a circle of fire for several hours for several days, usually ten hours a day at least for ten days. Under the Master's supervision this arduous meditation has been undertaken by a number of disciples over the last few years at the Bidadi ashram. A few have been unable to last the course but very few. Nithyananda says that this Ananda Tapas dissolves the samskaras completely as no other process can. The engraved memories are burned and boiled away.
Nithyananda talks about his own experiences with this Pancha Tapas when he practised it in Omkareshwar.
When one does the Ananda Tapas from morning till night, within ten or twelve days, I have seen that either the person will fall in tune or he'll run away. Either that person, if he's a sincere seeker, he'll fall in tune, or second day or third day he will disappear. I've seen that whatever it may be, he will not be there because this technique is like literally drilling your unconscious. You are not asking your unconscious's permission. You are not telling your unconscious, 'I am going to meditate. Please cooperate with me.' No! You just say 'either do or die. No! Even if you die who will do? Just do. That's all!'
There is no option of doing or dying; you just do. If you die who will do? No, you just have to do, that's all. There's no option. It is like straight away drilling your unconscious. From morning till night I had the fortune of doing this meditation for three months at a stretch. Totally I spent nine months with this technique, at different times. Each time I did this for three months.
I remember a very funny incident when I was practicing Pancha Tapas in the forests near Omkareshwar. For the first few days I used to gather little bits of wooden twigs lying around the forest to create the fire circle and start meditating. In a few hours the fire got extinguished. There was no one around and I can't keep opening my eyes every time to add a little more wood, fuel to it. So I called a local villager, one guy who was a shepherd who takes care of the cows and goats and requested him, 'Can you take care of me every day and add the wood to this fire.' He said he would. After a few days I saw there was no more any wood. He had used up whatever wood there was. He had to go and bring wood or he had to go and bring cow dung cake to keep the fire burning. He was a poor guy and had no money.
When I wondered what to do I saw that in my bag there was a lamp. I had been to a feast in Mysore before I came to Omkareshwar and the organizers gave a gift to each person who came in. This was a small oil lamp that one uses in puja rituals. I gave this lamp to him and asked him to sell it in the market to buy cow dung cake or wood to keep the fire burning.
You'll be surprised! When he came back from the market that man said 'It was a silver lamp and I got good money.' I remember very clearly that when I got the lamp it was not made of silver. Then I remembered a sadhu who was in Uttarkashi in the Himalayas who had handled this lamp. This sadhu was a naga baba, a sadhu who wore no clothes. He used to smoke ganja, a local version of hashish or opium, by putting it into a chillum. When he had almost run through his stock of opium he would place a few copper coins in the chillum. When he had finished smoking he would tap the ashes out of the chillum and gold coins used to fall out. The copper coins had turned into gold coins in his chillum. He would then ask me to sell the gold coins in the market and buy more opium.
I remember that once he saw this lamp was playing with it for a few two minutes. That's all I remember. He was just playing with that lamp in his hand and he was making fun of me. 'Oh, I think you have become a great samsara, a materialistic householder. You are carrying a lamp also.' A sanyasi is not supposed to carry any valuable item. The lamp was not actually a valuable item but it was something I did not throw away.
I asked him how he did this. He said to me in Tamil though he had no way of knowing I was from Tamilnadu and he too was not from Tamilnadu, 'angam pazuthal thangam pazhukkum'. This meant that when the person is ripe or the body is ripe then gold can appear. He offered to teach me the technique but I was not interested. Actually I questioned him why he was converting copper coins into gold coins. I said 'You are a swami. You do not need money' He was a great Paramahamsa, never had anything, no clothes, no food, no water, no sleep. Six months I stayed around him. Nothing! But he'll always smoke that ganja. It's a very funny thing. I asked him also once, 'You are a great mahatma. Why do you smoke that opium?' He said 'you don't know how difficult it is to bind my body and my conscious, my inner space. I have to dull myself to stay in the body. It is like holding an elephant with a thin rope. It has to be drugged'
But you don't start trying all these things! I have seen that people will take all these teachings perfectly, 'When he can smoke why not me?' No, they don't start thinking 'When he became enlightened why not me?' That's very difficult. I remember one more story. Maybe I'll tell after this story.
I made fun of him saying that 'Baba, you are a great Paramahamsa.' I said, 'Father, you are a great Paramahamsa. Why do you make copper coin into gold coin?' He laughed and just to make fun of me he picked up that lamp from my bag and said, 'See, You are also a samsari. You are carrying material things with you!' I had nothing else, just that one lamp and he gave me the title 'You are also samsari. You are carrying this lamp.'
He played with it and gave it back to me. At that time I did not look at it. Actually he was making fun of me by saying that he doesn't have to carry wealth and that he doesn't accumulate. He was saying all this for the fun of it. And that was the message he was trying to give by just playing with the lamp and making it silver. Since I had not noticed that it had become silver I did not respond. I just laughed and left.
This was the same lamp was that the shepherd sold to buy firewood. That money was also used up after some days, then what to do? I still needed wood for a few more days to continue the meditation. I remembered that naga baba, that sanyasi who had changed the lamp to silver. I was no longer in Uttarkashi. I was doing pancha tapas meditation far away in Madhya Pradesh some years later. I was not around him. I remembered him and told him very casually, very jovially, remembering him and telling him mentally, 'You should have made it into gold. For your ganja smoking you made gold but for me you made only silver. I am doing tapas yet you gave me only silver!'
You'll be surprised: this is the greatness of the Masters. Masters can receive these requests for help wherever they may be and can respond. The next day I was called by a nearby ashram for food. A rich man was giving food to all the sadhus and I was also called to take biksha (gifted meal). If I go once to the ashram and take biksha, I could stay there for one week.. So I decided to go. When I went there a rich man was serving all the sadhus and giving them gifts. He gave me the same lamp back! I was surprised. The lamp came back to me. When he handed me the gift I got a shock. I asked him where he got the lamp from. He said that a few days earlier a local shepherd sold this in the market to him.
He said, 'From the day I bought this lamp, a naga sadhu appeared in my dream every night telling me give it to a sadhu. Give this lamp back to a young swami, he kept telling me. I tried for two, three days to avoid the dream but everyday the dream returned. In this group I saw you are the youngest swami. That's why I was giving it to you.'
Actually I made fun of naga baba in a way, 'You are smoking ganja. For that you needed money and you made gold coin. Here I am meditating and doing tapas and for me you made only silver coin, silver thing!' But the powerful blessing was that it came back. He went into the dream of that rich guy who bought the lamp. Usually only gold jewelers buy all these things, naturally they'll be rich, and he appeared in that guy's dream and told him to go to a sanyasi group and give that to the youngest sadhu. Anyhow, very funny!
I needed money and I gave it to him asking him to keep it and to give me money. He asked me 'Why you are selling this back to me, Swamiji?'
I told him, 'Because I need some wood and cow dung cakes for doing pancha tapas.'
'Oh, for that you don't have to give this lamp.' Not only he gave the lamp back, but took care of all my needs for two more months. He supplied the wood regularly and took care of the whole tapas.
Anyhow, with this technique of pancha tapas your food, the quality of sleep, your water intake and all such needs will go through a drastic change. This is a very powerful technique for weight loss because your body will take only very little quantity of food but you will continuously feel
light. Not only light but feel very light, and you will feel as if you are flying. You will be radiating. It's a very intense technique. This is one of the techniques practiced for ages in the Vedic tradition for enlightenment. Another important information I want to give you about this technique is that even Devi practiced this technique in Arunachala, in my native place. That's the place where Devi practiced this technique. She meditated by putting fire all around her and practised this technique from morning till night, in all states of waking, sleeping, dreaming visualizing herself to be light. It is such a powerful technique.
Only thing is that I don't prescribe this technique to common people because it needs a sangha, a spiritual community that is really inspired to support this. Because the whole day you need to sit, somebody needs to be around caring for you in a very loving way, constantly feeding the fire. They should not put too much fire. If they put too much fire you won't be able to sit and if your body gets dehydrated constantly they should be supplying water. They should be supplying water and taking care of you, taking care that you don't have to open your eyes many times. You don't have to open your eye again and again. Last year we practiced in Bidadi ashram with a group of seekers. Maybe once a year we practice. Whoever wants, they can try. It's a very intense method.
One of my inspirational masters in childhood was Ma Vibhudhananda Devi about whom I spoke earlier. She practised this technique and after that never had a regular menstrual cycle. She said the energy going down had reversed. It is such a powerful technique. It'll just change the whole chemistry of your system. I have seen how she lived. She literally lived like a goddess on the earth.
She was a very polite, humble, pious person with amazing power! Anything that she decided to do, she did not even have to think a second time. Once she said that she will teach me some Upanishads and told me to get the Upanishad book from the market. I went and searched everywhere. I was not able to get the book. I came back feeling sad and told her, 'Ma, Upanishad book is not available. I don't know what to do.'
She said, 'Don't bother. What's the meaning of Upanishad?'
I said that, 'Upanishad means sitting with the master.'
She said, 'Then just sit.'
I sat. Funny thing is that after I sat she just put her hand on my hand and I saw the Upanishad book there. She casually materialized the book. Understand, if you have this power piousness will usually disappear. In her I have seen the piousness, simplicity and the power expressing more powerfully. That is the beauty. See, if she constantly carries the ego that she has this power she wouldn't even send me to buy the book. She will say 'Sit. I'll materialize the book and start the class.' No! She did not do that. It means she doesn't carry that in her ego. She doesn't use that for ego fulfillment. Only when it is really needed then she expresses that kind of power. A great pious person! In her life, again, she experienced this technique.
Nithyananda had other incidents to relate from his association with this naga baba, the naked monk, who he met at Uttarkashi.
If people went to this naga baba to have initiation, to learn something, he would tell them to focus on his trident, trishul. He would place his trishul, Shiva's trident, on the ground driving its bottom tip into the earth and tell them to stare at this trishul. They have to stare at all three tips at a time without shifting their eyeballs. You must be able to see all three tips of the trishul at time. I thought, 'What is the big deal? After it is a small trishul. It is not a big thing. I can stare at all three tips at a time, it is not a big thing'. He had this unique method of testing people. He would tell people, 'If you are able to stare at all three tips at a time then I will initiate you. Then you are ready. Otherwise I will not initiate you.' I was surprised at first since it seemed such a simple thing that everybody can do.
He would just put his finger on one tip, and he will ask me, 'Are you able to see this?' I would say 'Yes.' Then he would move his finger to the next tip, then he would ask 'Are you able to see?' If I moved my eyes, if I shifted my eyeballs even a little bit, he would detect the movement and say 'No, you are not able to stare at all three tips at a time. Your eyeballs are moving. You are not able to see all three at a time.' I was shocked. He was right. He was right because one's eyeballs are constantly moving at such a high speed. We are not able to understand that we can't see anything in one vision. Constantly our eyeballs are moving so that we are getting a complete picture. Because of that we don't understand the truth that we don't use both eyes at a time.
You may have two eyes as your sensory equipment and this is what in Sanskrit they call indriya. Indriya is not 'sense' as you understand. Please understand, senses are not called indriyas. Eyes are just an instrument, tool. There is energy behind the senses and we see through that energy, though we think we see through the tools. Eyes are just windows. There is energy behind the eyes that sees through the eyes. The energy that sees through the eyes is called indriya. In the case of eyes that indriya is called chakshu. Let me be very clear that you see through the eyes and your eyes are not seeing. Through the eyes you are seeing, and there is an energy that is seeing through the eyes, which we call indriya. I was shocked when I realized for the first time that I could not even see the three tips of that small trishul. He would make people sit there and he would not give food or let them sleep. He would tell them to look at all the tips of the trishul simultaneously and till one succeeded in this nothing was allowed, no food, no sleep, no initiation. If any sincere person sits there for three or four days he would be able to see.
Actually when I went, I also asked 'Babaji please teach me something'. Because he's such a highly evolved soul I should say a few words about him. He passed away recently. I think he lived up to a hundred and sixty years or around that. Even medical doctors had certified that he was a hundred and fifty to hundred and sixty years old. He had attended twelve kumbha melas. Kumbha mela is a function that happens in India once in twelve years. He has attended twelve kumbha melas, and was a very elderly, respected sadhu. He used to smoke a chillum, an opium pipe. Before smoking he will put a copper coin in that and he would smoke. And after that he will
empty the pipe and the coin would have turned to gold by an alchemy process. He will sell that coin and buy more opium. I had never seen him eating in the six months I stayed around him.
I asked him, 'Baba, please teach me something, some meditation or spirituality.' Again he will do the same thing. He had some twenty trishuls. Who ever came to him, first he'll give the trident, and ask them to stare at the trident. You have to stare at all the three points at a time. He did that for me also. I was sitting there, staring, staring, and staring. By evening he will come slowly and place his finger on the tips to test me. 'Are you able to see this?' 'Yes baba,' Then he will move the finger and he will be looking into my eyeballs. Even if my eyeballs moved a little bit it meant I was moving my eyeballs to see the next point. First day I failed the test, I was sitting there staring and the second day also nothing happened. After three or four days I was able to see all the three points without moving the eyes. Suddenly I realized that only when I was able to see all three points without moving my eyeballs, I was aware that there was a center within me, which was using these senses. I was aware that I myself was not directly connected to these senses. I was aware that there was a center within me that was using these senses. Suddenly I felt I was disconnected from the senses and I tell you my senses became so sharp, so alive. For the first time I felt I could handle these eyes, I could see through these eyes any number of hours without tiredness.
The next day he told me stare at the sun when the sun rises and continue to stare at the sun from sunrise to sunset. Naturally I got frightened about what will happen to my eyes. I wondered what he was teaching. In India you can't sue the master. You can't sue him and there is no 911 to complain, and nothing can be done. If you lose your eyes it means there is no other recourse, that's all, you can't do anything. What was he teaching, he was telling me to stare at the sun. I told him 'Baba, can I do this, will I not have any pain?' He told me, 'If you feel pain come back, you don't have to do'. But I tell you this and I swear that this is the truth. For three days I was able to do that, just staring at the sun. I neither had pain nor had tears. It was a simple, very simple technique. I was shocked. The technique is nothing but it took one to such a height. One became unconnected, and one is just unclutched from one's senses.
As long as you are connected to your senses or you believe you are your senses, you abuse your senses, be very clear. Your body and your senses have got tremendous intelligence to update, heal, rejuvenate and replace them selves. When you connect yourself with the senses you stop that natural rejuvenation process.
Your ego is such that whenever you feel some enjoyment you go the extreme till that sense is tired. Till that sense gets tired you do not stop. Till we feel we are overflowing we don't stop eating. Till our eyes are begging us to please relax, please relax, we do not switch off the TV. But just because you have a belief that seeing that nonsense cricket is joyful, you go on abusing your senses. Just because your mind believes that cricket is joyful you have some nonsensical ideas also connected with it. The moment you start believing, even if your eyes are begging, you can feel your eyes will just be closing down during the advertisement breaks, but you do not let the senses rest, you abuse them. When you go to the extreme point when you can't use it anymore, only then you relax. Like kids, till they break the toys they will not stop playing with them. Same way, till you break your senses you will not leave them.
Same way with food, if you decide something is tasty you will not leave that food till your senses are abused. If you have the intelligence that you are not your senses, that you are merely using the senses, then you will never abuse them. Creating a gap between you and the senses will give you a little sense. You will not abuse your senses anymore. You will not misuse your senses. In the same way, the moment you decide that touching is pleasurable you go to the extreme. You use all your energy to feel that pleasure through touch. You do not let the body rejuvenate itself. You do not give enough gap for your senses to rejuvenate themselves.
There is an automatic intelligence that is constantly rejuvenating your senses. Not only it is rejuvenating, it is also replacing. If some part is damaged you have enough intelligence to replace that also. But, if your ego or the mind interferes, you do not allow that natural process to happen.
An important thing that I realized with the naga baba was that if once I brought tremendous awareness to myself, I could realize that I was not the senses but I was beyond the senses. I was using my senses. Through the senses I was relating with the world. I was shocked that I could stare at the sun for three days. I had never believed, I never trusted I could do that. But, when you are away from senses, whatever thing you do, your senses have the power to rejuvenate and they don't get tired. They bring in tremendous energy. The senses refill themselves.
Last December (2005) in our ashram on the 31st December we did fire walking. There were so many people, at least 500 people, who walked on that fire. At least 500 people, 100 to 200 people from different countries. They had never heard of this fire walking. We had a fifteen days meditation program and at the end of the program, on the last day, I said, let's see how much you are unconnected from senses. If really you are unconnected, your bodies should be able to expand, it should be able to adjust and rejuvenate with the atmosphere, with the other situations. Let us test, I said.
After the fire walking, one devotee came and told me, 'Swamiji, before walking I trusted you, and after walking I am able to trust myself. I never thought I could have done this. I just did it because of you, but after walking on that fire I suddenly realized that I am able to do it by myself. When I prove myself to myself, the confidence or the idea which I am having about myself is developed, it becomes different, total.' Several hundreds of people walked on the fire and have done again since then. Not one foot or two feet fire, but twenty-one feet long. Not only nobody was hurt, many were walking a second time and a third time. Some were dancing on the fire.
If you can center yourself, in your center, beyond these five senses, not only you'll experience the bliss within, even the senses become very alive, energetic and active. You experience a different level of existence. Altogether your very existence will be in a different level.
Moving the Himalayan Mountain
Nithyananda says that there are no miracles in Existence. Everything that happens and seemingly is made to happen is based on laws of nature. When science and intellect do not understand these incidents, they are labeled as either miracles or magic. It is neither. Till a decade ago if an incident cannot be repeated in an identical manner under controlled conditions it was termed unscientific. Repeatability under controlled conditions was the ultimate test of scientific truth. Today this is a test applicable only to high school science, perhaps not even that high, may be elementary school science or to what is called science by unscientific minds.
In Quantum Physics and Molecular Cellular Biology, which are in the forefront of all sciences, time and again eminent scientists have established that many natural phenomena cannot pass this repeat test. Nature does not follow the unscientific science. In a cloud chamber, scientists studying the behavior of sub atomic particles have demonstrated that these particles seem to have a mind of their own. Even under identical conditions they behave differently to different observers. They know who watches them and when. Shankara, one of the greatest Vedic sages propounded this theory that what is observed depends on the observer, over a thousand years ago. Today this phenomenon is documented by authors such as Lynn McTaggart in "The Intention Experiment', Bruce Lipton in 'Biology of Beliefs', as well as movies like 'What the bleep do you know.'
Science has not advanced yet to know all. When human arrogance elevates its own capability that it terms as science to areas that it does not yet understand, what results can be disastrous. During his parivrajaka days Nithyananda came across many such incidents, some of which have been already described, that broke his faith in his own intellect. He learnt techniques and witnessed demonstration of techniques that seemed to make improbable and impossible things to happen.
Badrinath is one of the pilgrimage locations that Nithyananda takes his followers to during the Himalayan Yatra of the char dham locations. The temple is on the banks of the river Alaknanda and dedicated to Vishnu. It was consecrated by Adi Shankara and is considered as one of the holiest Vishnu shrines in India. Nithyananda describes an incident that happened to him during his stay in Badrinath.
I was traveling near Badrinath. I stayed at a village called Mana that is quite close to the indo Chinese border. There's a place called Vyasa Guha nearby, a cave where Vyasa lived and wrote the Mahabharata, which is the longest epic, still the longest poem in the planet earth. Whenever people come and tell me 'Mahabharata is a myth,' I tell them 'Relax.'
Badrinath is the place where Vyasa was staying. I had the fortune of staying in a monastery where a few monks were staying and practicing very powerful techniques with a master. I can say all of them were almost on the verge of enlightenment. One person was enlightened. The guru was fully enlightened but all others were on the verge of enlightenment. They were just literally playing with the power of these techniques.
I want you to understand now one important thing: whatever I am expressing now is the truth, honest truth that I experienced with my own eyes and senses in my own life.
One morning when I was staying in the monastery, the guru called all the disciples together. All of them were sitting and he was talking about some of these techniques of feeling connected. He was talking from the viewpoint of feeling connected to the whole Himalaya Mountains. It was very amazing. This enlightened Master was very loving and caring enough to allow me also into their morning session.
He was asking one by one, 'Did you practice this technique?' It seemed that only a few days before he initiated them into the technique of feeling connected to the whole Himalayas. They were supposed to constantly internalize that the Himalayas were part of their body. One swami came and said, 'Yes, Master, now I feel completely connected.'
Now you need to understand. The Master very casually said, 'Alright then, move that rock on the mountain.' Understand, I promise I saw with my eyes that this monk moved his hand and that rock moved. Very difficult, it's logically very difficult to believe. Only when you have a chance to live intimately can you believe. I had a shock and really, literally, I was ready to run away from that place. I just got up and got shaken, was shaken completely and started to run out of that place. That monk started laughing. The master started laughing. He called me back and said 'Why did you get frightened?' Of course, at that time not only I was not enlightened but for the first time I was seeing that kind of power over matter.
See: I have seen small miracles like materializing vibhuti, the sacred ash and other objects. I have seen those things with a master who initiated me into yoga. I have seen him materializing a conch and other small things, anything that can be held by the hand. Those things do not need any great achievement. For those things all you need to do is to see that the gap between your hands should become a living energy field. Then you can start materializing or teleporting. Usually it will be teleporting. Materializing does not happen usually. Very rarely I have seen someone creating something. Usually it will be only teleporting. I was able to do these also. This was too much, a huge solid rock just moving in the mountain.
He called me back and he said, 'What happened? Were you frightened?'
I said, 'Naturally!'
Then he said, 'You want to see the power of mind? Just sit here.' He told that monk, the disciple who moved the rock, to hold my hand.
He told me, 'Now you move your hand.'
Just then a very funny thing happened. I moved my hand and the rock came back to the original place. Of course this was too big a shock for me. Then he told me very beautifully, 'It is not that only that swami can do and you can't do. No! Anybody who can be part of that connection will be able to move.'
I am not saying that you need to move the rock. If you just move your head, that's enough. I'm not saying we need to move the rocks. I'm expressing about this technique only to tell you the power of this technique.
Ramakrishna says very beautifully that when you have these powers you are not supposed to express them unless there is a living master in front of you and he is actively involved in the process. Ramakrishna talks about one of his experiences. A sadhu who had these kinds of powers came to him but he was not enlightened. He wanted to impress Ramakrishna. This sadhu sat in front of Ramakrishna on the banks of he river Hooghly, which is an extension of Ganga. There was a small cyclone in the ocean that carried through into the river and all the small boats started tossing and turning. The sadhu demonstrated his power and stopped the cyclone. Because he stopped the cyclone suddenly, many boats were not able to balance and got drowned and a few people died. Because of this incident the sadhu lost his powers.
Understand: It's a very different, strange experience. So whenever you have these kinds of experiences it is better not to experiment unless the living Master is directly staying with you and assists you. If at all you have some extraordinary experiences, the best way is to witness. If it is necessary, if you have the intelligence to handle, it will stay with you. Otherwise it will leave you. It'll leave you.
Nithyananda has talked about one more incident connected to Mana, this village near Badrinath. On the path leading to Vyasa's cave, there is another location called Ganesha's cave. There is a small Ganesha temple on this spot. Vyasa Guha is a structure that looks as if it is formed of palm leaves on which the Mahabharata was written. It is believed that Lord Ganesha wrote the Mahabharata as Vyasa dictated the verses to him. When Vyasa requested Ganesha to help him write out this log epic, Ganesha laid down the condition that he would never have to wait for Vyasa's dictation to write. In return Vyasa made Ganesha agree that he would understand the meaning behind each verse before he wrote down.
Nithyananda told us when we visited this location with him that he actually saw Ganesha, that he had Ganesha's darshan, at this Ganesha Guha, Ganesha's Cave, when he came here the first time. He also had the vision of Ganesha sitting in front of Vyasa writing down the Mahabharata. That is why in the beginning of this incident that he narrated about the moving rock, he said that he tells people who question the authenticity of Mahabharata to relax. Mahabharata is no myth.
Nithyananda says that if any one could fictionalize and connect the thousands of characters portrayed in Mahabharata, such a person, the great Vyasa, must be the greatest writer who ever lived. There is not one disconnect, not one missing link in this the epic. It is no epic story, says Nithyananda, it all happened as it has been written.
300-year-old Tibetan Lamas
Tibetan Lamas are amongst the yogis who have been studied in detail by medical and scientific professions. Dr. Herbert Benson, the renowned Harvard Medical School Professor, who probably single handedly made meditation a respectable word in America through his books Relaxation Response and others, in later days studied Buddhist lamas in Tibet. In his documentaries he describes how in the bitter cold of Tibetan winters these monks are initiated. They sit in an open space with just a cloth covering their lower half and a cold wet cloth is placed around their upper half. These monks are in deep meditation and one can see in the film the evaporation from the wet cloth. In a few minutes the cloth is dry, as dry as it would have been had it been in a drier machine. The wet cloth is replaced again and again throughout the night each time as the previous one dries. These monks elevate their body temperature by several degrees that would spell death to any one else.
Many such incidents that defy conventional logic have been recorded after studying these monks. Nithyananda spent many months in Tibet in Buddhist monasteries and learnt Buddhist teachings and meditation techniques from the monks.
Nithyananda talks about one experience of initiation in a monastery. He was seated and a large metallic bell like object was placed over him. This bell had a number of holes so that he could breathe. Monks sitting around the bell started beating this bell from its bottom upwards. The sound and the vibration of the bell being struck were physically painful to start with. Gradually Nithyananda felt his chakras responding to the vibrations being created and as he accepted this and settled down he felt his chakras opening. It was a tremendously powerful experience.
At the end of this initiation, one of the monks came to him with a wooden stick with a sharp end and with a wooden hammer drove the stick into his third eye point. Nithyananda felt the wooden nail go in to his body at least a few inches. This was a powerful initiation technique to open the third eye.
In one of the monasteries Nithyananda was told about another monastery a distance away that had many old lamas, some at least 300 years old. Nithyananda walked to this distant monastery and was directed to a field nearby where the old lamas worked. There he met a monk, physically quite fit, working in the field.
Nithyananda says:
In ancient India, there was a practice called Kayakalpa, which is a technique to reverse the aging process. According to this philosophy, as you age, you become healthier because your body and mind are better trained to live in the world. If you are trained in driving and become a good driver, you can drive without any effort. In the same way, as the years pass, you should master the art of living in this world. They say that as you grow older you are not supposed to fall sick, or have stress, because you should know the logic of the world and become more intelligent, healthy and spontaneous. However, that is not our experience! What has happened? Where did we miss it? The missing link is our idea of time and being continuously reminded of chronological time because of the increased number of thoughts.
If we change two things, we can make kayakalpa a reality. First, change our perception about our body. We always think that as we age our body gets old and diseased. It is not necessary, but that's our perception. We may question it by saying that when we get old, we really do feel tired and it's not our imagination. We don't know the power of your mind.
I once went to a place in Tibet, where the Lamas live. I was told people there live long. I saw an elderly man working in the fields. I asked him: Do people here live long? Please tell me about it. He laughed and said, 'You think I am old? I am just middle aged, I'm only 136. Ask others who are 200 or more'. There were medical records to show he really was 136. And he was working in the farm! I couldn't believe it just like you all. Then they showed me a report by researchers from Wisconsin University, who worked with them to study their body to understand how they live longer.
According to the scientists, their body works just like ours; it's no different, even genetically. They conclude that there is something beyond the body that makes them live longer. None of the Lamas could give any reason for their long life. But they all had a strong belief that human beings are supposed to live up to 300 years. If someone died at 200, it was considered an unnatural death! I later read a report by scientists that says that our body continuously rejuvenates and replaces itself, and can do so for 300 years. So our perception about our body must change.
Your mind has such a tremendous power that whatever you believe you has the capacity to make it a reality. That's why people who see horror movies continuously start seeing ghosts. If you watch one horror movie every night for ten days in a row, on the eleventh day you will see a ghost, or think you are seeing ghosts when a curtain moves. Your mind has the capacity to make anything as a reality. The first basic idea or your perception of time at the physical level, the very idea that the more you age the more you fall sick, is wrong.
Shambhala, the etheric helipad
Tapovan is a location at about 15,000 feet altitude in the Himalayas, above Gangotri and Gomukh, where Ganga appears. Even today both Gomukh and especially Tapovan are difficult to reach. They have only trekking paths and hardly any accommodation to speak of. Ten years ago when Nithyananda visited and stayed in these places there were far fewer visitors.
Nithyananda told us that to go up to Tapovan and stay there as he did for many months, it requires acclimatization at the Gangotri altitude for many months. Air is very thin at such high altitudes and this can be fatal for some. We asked him how he survived in Tapovan. He said he lived in caves, covered himself with some jute material and newspapers left behind by other sadhus and survived on fruits, berries and roots that he picked from the plants and trees. He stayed for about six months at Tapovan.
Nithyananda talks with deep passion about Tapovan. The Himalayas are a living entity to him, but Tapovan is very special. He calls this the fabled Shambhala, where the energy of the Universe resides. The Sapta Rishis, the seven sages, who are talked about in the Hindu scriptures reside here. Nithyananda says that the Sapta Rishis are not physical entities but the combined energy of enlightened beings that decide on the operation of the Universe. He told us that a being could only be enlightened as a human from planet earth. Other planets have living beings but not at the same level of consciousness of humans that can elevate into super consciousness. One needs to be born as a human to be enlightened. The launch pad of the enlightened being is located in Tapovan in the etheric plane. He also said that the banyan tree at Bidadi and the banyan tree that he visited with Arunagiri Yogiswara in Thiruvannamalai too are in the same etheric plane.
On his way down from Tapovan to the plains Nithyananda was offered a lift in an Indian Army truck. This truck had crude metal benches to sit on at the rear and these benches had metal bolts to locate weapons. At some point when the truck traversed a ditch, Nithyananda was thrown up with force and landed on a steel bolt. This bolt pierced through and fractured his spine. He was taken to the nearest Army Hospital where he was bandaged and told to rest for a few weeks to allow the fracture to heal. On the way to the Hospital Nithyananda kept his hand where the fracture had occurred and where the pain was intense. He found that even before he reached the Hospital that the pain had reduced a lot. After the doctors gave him some first aid Nithyananda walked out of the Hospital against the advice of the doctors and continued to heal himself with his hand on the bottom of he spine. Within a few days he was completely free of any discomfort.
This was the first time that Nithyananda discovered that he could heal himself. After this event he continued to heal himself whenever he had an ailment. From this self-healing to healing others was a small step for him. In the initial stages and to an extent even now it is Nithyananda's extraordinary powers of healing that drew people to him like a magnet. He has called his healing power his visiting card. It is no longer merely Nithyananda's calling card but his mission's since there are many thousand Nithya Healers ordained by him in various parts of the world.